THE Vatican is preparing to give England its first post- Reformation saint by putting Cardinal Newman — the 19th-century priest whose conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism shocked Victorian England — on the road to canonisation, thanks to a long-awaited miracle.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, who is in Rome attending a Synod of Bishops, said that he had raised the issue of John Henry Newman’s beatification — the step before sainthood — three years ago with the late John Paul II, who described Newman during his visit to Britain in 1982 as “that great man of God”.

Candidates for beatification must, however, be shown to have been responsible for at least one “miracle”, usually a medically inexplicable cure.

Although a dossier on Cardinal Newman’s beatification was first opened in 1958, no miracles had, until now, been attributed to his intercession. “I had to tell John Paul that the English are not very good at miracles,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said. “It’s not that we are not pious, but the English tend to think of God as a gentleman who should not be bullied.”

Yesterday, however, the cleric responsible for arguing Newman’s cause, Father Paul Chavasse, the Provost of Birmingham Oratory, which was founded by Newman in 1848, said that a deacon in the Diocese of Boston in the United States had testified that he had recovered from a spinal disease after praying to Cardinal Newman. “At last we have a miracle cure,” he said.

Father Chavasse said that the 60-year-old deacon, who could not be named, had earlier undergone an unsuccessful operation, but after prayers to Newman had “fully recovered his health and mobility”. He was speaking at the launch in Rome of Benedict XVI and Cardinal Newman, a collection of writings on Newman edited by Peter Jennings.

The cause of Newman’s beatification is likely to be close to the new Pope’s heart because he is known to have admired Newman since his student days. One of his first messages after his election in April was to Trinity College, Oxford — where Newman was the first Honorary Fellow — praising his “disciplined commitment to the pursuit of religious truth”.

The miracle attributed to Newman is being investigated by the Boston Diocese, which will complete its findings in February. The evidence will then be forwarded to the Vatican for approval by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and ultimately to the Pope.

Four English Catholic martyrs were recognised as saints in 1970 and Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were both canonised in 1935. All date from the 16th century. Mr Jennings, who is the spokesman for Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, who is also attending the Synod and promoting Newman’s “cause”, said it was ironic that the miracle which could finally put Newman on the road to sainthood had occurred in Boston, the diocese in which the paedophile scandals that have recently shaken the Catholic Church first came to light. “Perhaps that is God’s little joke,” he said.

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Cardinal Newman worked among the poor of Birmingham and later moved to Dublin, where he founded and became Rector of University College. He is remembered not only as a theologian and pioneer of ecumenism but also as the author of the poem The Dream of Gerontius, which was set to music by Elgar. He also wrote the hymn Lead, Kindly Light while on a visit to Sicily in 1833, during which he fell desperately ill with a fever. His recovery is said to have inspired his later work and ultimately his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

A HOLY LIFE

1801 John Henry Newman born in London, the son of a banker

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